


ghosts in my head

by lizzieraindrops



Category: Orphan Black (TV), The Giver Series - Lois Lowry
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, The Giver AU, reference to Helsinki #3 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6723304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizzieraindrops/pseuds/lizzieraindrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MK has been Giving memories of Helsinki to Beth.<br/><i>The Giver</i> AU, aka an AU where people can transmit memories through physical contact.</p><p>A oneshot originally posted <a href="http://lizzieraindrops.tumblr.com/post/143687170749/beth-and-mk-the-giver-au">on tumblr</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ghosts in my head

When a wilting and wild-eyed Beth turns up at the twenty-five centimeter drop to the ground that passes for the doorstep of her trailer, Veera knows what’s happening to her. She looks down into her face, and there it is: memories that aren’t hers looming larger than life behind her eyes.

“Tea,” she says, nodding to herself. “I’ll make some iced tea.” She steps back to let Beth pass through the doorway.

Beth pulls herself into the trailer, steps unsteady on the hollow-sounding floor.

“I can’t stop thinking about it, Mika,” Beth whispers. She paces the short length of the trailer a few times, then stops, staring into space at something her eyes never saw. “The fire.”

Veera doesn’t speak. Even if she could bring herself to, there’s nothing to say.  _Yes. Everything burned. It was terrible._  She scoops iced tea concentrate out of its cylindrical container with a measuring spoon, running on autopilot. She wishes she had better tea. (She wishes she could remember what kind of tea Niki made for them, those times when they both woke up shaking in the middle of the night, full of the memories Jade had passed to them - recollections Dr. Volkov’s other patients had shared with her. Whatever the tea was, it held the weight of thinking the thoughts of the dead at bay; it was soft and floral and soothing and made from something that grew. But it’s as lost to time as-) But this is all she has.

Veera mixes the crystals with cold, cold water, though she knows it won’t cool Beth’s throat.

“No wonder you live like this,” Beth mutters, mostly to herself. Then she turns to catch Veera’s eye. “Oh, God, Mika - I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like…that.” She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, while Veera watches, motionless. “I just - I wanted answers. I didn’t - I didn’t  _know_ …I didn’t know it would be like this.”

“Yes, knowledge burns,” Veera whispers. Beth collapses onto the tiny couch, and she crosses the room to join her. “Here. Thirty-five milliliters crystals to seventy-five milliliters water. Tea helps.” Or maybe, being given tea helps. In any case, here she is, trying to give Beth something that won’t hurt.

She hasn’t even shown Beth any of the more gruesome memories of Helsinki yet.

“God, this is my life now,” Beth says, staring into her glass of tea like it’s a swimming pool she wants to dive into, but can’t.

Beth turns to look at her. The drawn lines in her young face are weighted, and Veera did that to her. Veera’s heart clenches and twists uncomfortably. “How do you do it?” Beth asks in an anguished whisper. “I know you haven’t shown me  fraction of the things you remember.”

Veera smiles down into her lap, feels one side of her mouth tugging upward. Finally, a question she can answer.

“Sometimes, I sit here shaking and thinking all night. Other times, I remember… good things.” She lays a tentative hand on Beth’s fully sleeved arm. As long as their skin doesn’t touch, no lost memories will flow between them.

Veera looks up earnestly into Beth’s identical hazel eyes. “Can I show you one?”

Beth hesitates, apprehensive, but then she nods. The stabbing weight of memory is still too new to her, and she’s willing to try anything to make it hurt less.

Veera smiles wider, then takes Beth’s bare hand in both of hers. They both close their eyes.

_… the dimness of a poorly lit basement. A sudden tight-strung panic in her chest -_

_“Niki… don’t leave me.” Her hand catching purse straps like a lifeline. Hold. Don’t let go._

_“I’m just going to the corner store. Lock the door behind me. I’ll only be a sec, I swear.”  
_

_… gentle hands on her shoulders, easing them down from their tense height. Her chest open and light, floating. A face like hers before her, but with flowing blonde hair and a smile that’s never had to hide itself. Never had to twist itself into something it’s not to stay safe._

_“Niki, when Justyna said I was deaf and mute… you…” She protected her. She spoke to defend her when she couldn’t speak for herself._ _She didn’t have to but she put herself on the line, all for her, all just for her -_

_“Don’t worry about it. We watch each other’s backs. That’s what friends do.”_

**_!!!!_ **

**_Friends. She considers us friends… I have a friend._ **

_She could dance. She could fly. She could spin endless circles in this godforsaken church basement and not care what it looked like because Niki is her friend, Niki knows who she is and what she is and Niki is her friend and she wouldn’t call her weird, call her crazy, because she knows her, she sees her, and she defended her, she cares about her -_

_She doesn’t do any of those things, she doesn’t move, just stands there reeling in stillness, in delight, trying not to be afraid that when Niki leaves she won’t come bac-_

Veera abruptly lets go of Beth’s hand. She promised Beth something good. She won’t make Beth feel those fears, especially when they’re too close to what she’s feeling right now, in the present.

Beth is gasping shakily. Tears are rolling silently down her face.

“Mika, what  _was_  that?” she asks hoarsely.

Veera smiles sadly. “One of mine.” Though it’s Beth’s, now. Veera still has a little bit of it, but most of it has flowed out of her through the brief link of their hands.

Beth gapes at her. She knows how the memories fade, for Veera, when she gives them to Beth. But Veera wants her to have it. She wants to protect Beth like Niki protected her.

 

***

 

“Please don’t leave me.” Mika whispers.

Beth halts in her trajectory toward the door like the weight at the end of a plumb line suddenly gone taut. She can almost feel the way Mika wants to rush after her and grab her by the purse straps, holding her there. In fact, she  _can_  feel it. Mika’s old memory is alive and clamoring inside her, but now she’s standing on the wrong side of it. She’s the one who’s leaving, even though she knows exactly how this is making Mika feel.

She hates that this is who she is.

She turns around.

Beth walks back across the room and enfolds Mika in her arms one last time. Then she lets go and looks her in the eye. She lifts one hand and lays it bare on Mika’s smooth cheek. (She wouldn’t presume to touch her scarred one. She  _knows_  how she feels about it.)

“Take it back,” Beth whispers. She’s never Given a memory before, but surely the tingling in her fingertips, the haziness of forgetting the love of a pink-and-gold someone she never knew, means that it’s working.

Tears are falling down Mika’s face. The poor girl is shaking again. Beth has done, is doing a terrible thing. But maybe this will make it a little less terrible when she’s gone.

Then Beth turns away and carries herself somewhere the bad memories can’t hurt her anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ["Ghosts"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKAd4ksZisw) by PVRIS:
> 
> _I swear that I'll be fine,_   
>  _I'll be fine in the daylight_   
>  _If I change, I start to fade_   
>  _And all the green in my eyes desaturate_   
>  _It's my head, not my heart that's strayed_   
>  _I'm sorry I keep pushing you away._
> 
> _Why can't you stay?_   
>  _I'm up against these things I can't see_   
>  _They don't compare_   
>  _Make me believe, make me believe_
> 
> _I'm sorry I keep pushing_   
>  _I'm sorry I keep pushing_   
>  _Now you're up against the ghosts in my head_


End file.
